Pastor Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Preach About Bombing Iran

This goes a little bit out of the realm of my usual posts, but it was just too disturbing not to share. I heard from an office colleague about some pastor going around saying we should bomb Iran and of course, my curiosity was peaked. Ironically, that the same day, John Hagee did an interview with Terry Gross on NPR. Well, here is just a brief background on him I found…there is plenty for fodder. I am worried about what he is saying, particularly because he does have a pretty big following, plus the ear of the White House.

John Hagee is the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, a non-denominational evangelical church with more than 18,000 active members. He also founder of Christians United for Israel and believes Armageddon is coming soon (and his job is to help usher it in). His most recent book is Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World. While claiming to reach 99 million homes through his television show, he argues that the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West, which according to him was prophesized in the Book of Esther. An exposé of Pastor Strangelove can be found here.

Hagee was interviewed in March 2006 by Human Events Online, a conservative weekly. When asked whether the US should be an aggressor against Iran, Hagee said it “would be shameful for America, with all its military might, to allow Israel to fight our fight!” He goes on to say, “Iran is a threat to western civilization ... not just to Israel. Iran with nuclear weapons will be the world's worst nightmare. America and Europe will be blackmailed to bow to the Islamofacist agenda. The attack on 9/11 proved Islamics have the will to kill us, they are now searching for the power to kill us ... nuclear power.”

He also believes that the Bible prophesizes that Russia will unite with Islamist nations to destroy Israel. In his Human Events interview he says, “Several years ago, former Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, sat in my office and told me that when he was Prime Minister he gave to America's intelligence community photographic proof that Russian scientist were helping the Iranians develop medium range missiles that had the ability to reach Europe and Jerusalem. Russia has been developing its relationships with the Islamic nations. I believe that relationship will develop in the future into Russia providing military leadership for radical Islamic forces against Israel. Russia's payoff is the oil from the Persian Gulf giving it the ability to become a super-power again. The Islamic payoff is the control of Jerusalem.”